


Reunion in Shadow

by SadinaSaphrite



Series: Through the Years [6]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ana is Absolutely Done with Everybody's Shit, Angst, Blood and Injury, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mild Language, Near Death Experiences, Post-Fall of Overwatch, Reaper76Week 2018, Two Super Soldiers Don't Talk About Their Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 04:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13427013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadinaSaphrite/pseuds/SadinaSaphrite
Summary: Jack had known for years that this was how he would die. Someone would finally get the better of him, and he’d be forced to crawl away in some back alley and bleed out alone. If he had one dying wish, it would be to see Gabe again. He was dying anyway, right? What did it matter if he met his end at the barrels of the Reaper’s shotguns? At least he’d see him again. One last time.***Jack never did know when to quit, the Reaper thought as he rematerialized beside the fallen Soldier. But then again, he’d have been terribly disappointed if his Jack ever decided to give up and die. His Jack. Even after all these years, he still thought of him as ‘His Jack.’*   *   *   *   *Chapter One - Day Six of Reaper76 Week 2018 - Questionable ActionsChapter Two - Day Seven of Reaper76 Week 2018 - Depth of Relationship





	1. Questionable Actions

**Author's Note:**

> This took me a thousand years to write, but I'm so happy to finally be able to share it with you. The whole week has been leading up to this!

As usual, events had not gone according to plan. A patrol group had delayed Jack from getting to the rendezvous point on time, and when he’d finally arrived sixty-three minutes later, Ana wasn’t there. No communications, either. They’d both gone into the base without communicators or any tech with triangulation abilities, as that Talon hacker had a nasty habit of tapping into their transmission frequencies at the worst possible time. 

This was good, though, Jack thought as he stared at the warehouse that was their rendezvous point, filled with crates and cargo, but empty of one half-blind sniper. He’d be worried that she hadn’t made it here at all, were it not for the single biotic grenade sitting conspicuously on top of a crate. This meant Ana was sticking to the plan. They had agreed that if either of them was thirty minutes late to the rendezvous, they were to evacuate alone and meet back up at the hideout. He had to trust that Ana had done just that, even leaving him a sign that she had waited as long as she could before moving on, so it was on him to get out of this Talon-infested hellhole in one piece. He pocketed the grenade and slipped out of the dark warehouse.

Alright. Back to work. The evacuation route was supposed to be clear, but that was without taking into consideration that he was supposed to evac thirty-four minutes ago. Patrol routes would have changed by now, and despite their best efforts, he and Ana hadn’t been able to get solid intel on the Talon patrol schedules, just permanent fixtures like cameras and security turrets. No choice now but to head out and hope. 

He followed the planned exit route, sticking to the shadows and the blind spots in the security cameras. He made it out of the base and over the high perimeter wall without incident, leaving only a few layers of hotwire and laserlink fencing to go through and he’d be home free, assuming he could also dodge the cameras and the perimeter patrols. Things almost seemed like they were actually going well for once.

As soon as the thought had even crossed Jack’s mind, there was a shout from a guard tower. 

“Intruder!”

Dammit.

The sharp ratatat of assault rifle fire tore through the night and Jack broke into a run. The shrill screams of alarms followed a moment later, and Jack knew he was in trouble. The hole they’d secured through the laserlink fence upon their entry was 300 yards to the left, but the guard tower was between him and his exit, and he could see a perimeter patrol sprinting toward him from that direction, too. He could keep heading for his exit and fight a group of at least six Talon guards while dodging assault rifle fire from above, or he could run to the left, taking his chances with the turret that was positioned on the corner of the perimeter wall, and trust in his abilities to quickly break through the fence.

A second patrol group rounded the corner, hot on the heels of the first patrol group. Make that twelve Talon guards. Jack decided to take his chances with the turret. He hurled Ana’s biotic grenade at the closest group, hoping it would at least slow them down, then turned and ran.

Thank God those SEP mods let him run like the fucking wind. He managed to put some distance between himself and the patrols, even getting out of range of the gunfire from the guard tower. Now it was just a game of chicken between himself and the turret. He could see it coming up, the irregular shape breaking up the smooth outline of the perimeter wall. He needed to get in close enough to land a solid hit with a trio of helix rockets, and then it would be down. After that, he probably had enough time to break through the remaining fencing and he’d be able to vanish into the night.

The only problem was that the turret had a longer range than his pulse rifle or rockets, so there would be several long seconds when he was vulnerable before he could get the rockets off. With some luck, some careful dodging and his unnatural speed would be enough to confuse it for the few crucial seconds he would need to get in close enough to fire.

Jack kept his eyes locked on the turret, highlighted against the darkness by the modifications in his visor. A red light flickered as he entered the turret’s range and the machine stirred to life. He needed six steps. Six long, sprinting strides and he’d have it.

One, two…

The turret began to fire, slower than the assault of a machine gun, but making up for speed in range and accuracy.

…three, four…

He heard the whistle of a bullet graze past his ear and he raised his pulse rifle to fire, flicking his thumb over the switch that activated the rocket modification. 

…five, six!

It almost worked. He fired at the turret, and his aim was true. However, Helix Rockets were big and slow, and the turret was still firing. While the pulse rifle was still slamming recoil into his shoulder, a line of bullets ripped through leather and Kevlar, tearing through his chest and abdomen. The turret exploded a fraction of a second later, but the damage had been done and Jack crumpled to the ground. 

Shit.

This was far from the first time Jack had been shot, but whatever the hell that turret had been packing was brutal. Or perhaps he had just been unlucky enough for shock not to set in. Those were always the best ones, when you couldn’t even tell you’d been shot until someone was yelling at you to sit down before you got blood everywhere.

This was definitely a different situation. Everything hurt. He couldn’t tell how many bullets he’d taken, but his entire torso was alight with fire, from his right shoulder to his left hip. When his vision cleared enough to see again, he could make out a warning on his visor’s HUD, letting him know he had been injured. No shit.

Fuck. Come on. Get up. He had to get up. Get up or die.

He rolled to his stomach and got his hands under him, trying to push himself upward.

Push through it. Ignore the pain. Get up. Gotta move. Gotta run.

He tried, he really tried to stand, but the moment he put any amount of pressure on his left hip, he collapsed. Something was wrong. Very wrong. A second attempt to get up revealed that he couldn’t move his left leg at all. A few ragged breaths later and he discovered that he couldn’t even feel the leg.

Oh God. _Oh God._

Dread settled somewhere beneath the pain like a lead weight. If he couldn’t move, this was it. This was over.

Not yet.

A burst of the old Morrison Stubbornness rose in his chest and he gritted his teeth. Maybe…maybe he could crawl. Maybe he could double back, get back to the hole in the fence, and crawl to the hideout. 

The plan was dubious at best, but it was all he had left. Gritting his teeth behind his mask, Jack pushed up to his arms and began to crawl, dragging his numb leg behind him. He felt a pang of regret as he left his pulse rifle behind, but there was no way he’d be able to carry the heavy weapon when it was all he could do just to drag himself closer to the line of fencing. So he left it where it lay, and focused on crawling.

Each foot was agony. His movement consisted of reaching forward to clutch at the ground with his gloved hands, work his right knee underneath him, then use the leverage to lurch himself forward and start the whole process over again. His shoulder and gut burned with a seething fire the entire time, and he couldn’t tell how injured he was. He was able to breathe easily, so he didn’t think he’d gotten a chest wound, though he tried not to think about how warm and wet his skin of his abdomen was starting to feel underneath his Kevlar. That would be his downfall, if he bled out before he could get somewhere safe. He wouldn’t be able to crawl all the way to their hideout, but if he could just get somewhere secure and hidden, he could throw down a biotic emitter and rest, hopefully healing up enough that he could get back to the hideout and back to Ana. 

For a while, the plan was working better than Jack could imagine. Closer to the perimeter edges, the ground grew rockier with sparse vegetation, providing him with at least a little cover, though it was more difficult to crawl through. The patrol group that had been following him had even run past, found his rifle, and then continued in a different direction, not anticipating that he would double back. He might be able to do this. There were plenty of rocky formations and deep crevices outside the fence where he could hide and the light from a biotic emitter wouldn’t be seen. He was even pretty sure he remembered some kind of fissure that ran halfway along the base’s north side. All he needed was somewhere to hole up for a few hours, stop the bleeding, and he could keep going.

Once again, it almost worked.

He could see the hole in the fence, the line of electromagnetic dampeners that killed the hotwire and deactivated a three foot section of the laserlink. Twenty feet ahead. Ten. He could do this. Five feet. Two. He was through! If he had any breath to spare, he would have let out a sigh at exiting the Talon stronghold. It felt good just to be out, even if he wasn’t in the clear yet. 

He pulled himself another foot forward and a wave of dizziness washed over him, hitting him hard enough that his arms gave out and his head cracked against the rocky ground.

No. No! Come on! Move, dammit!

Jack clutched at the ground with trembling fingers, but his breath was starting to grow quick and shaky, air somehow seeming in short supply. No matter how he moved, he felt dizzy and lightheaded, and he was cold, despite his jacket.

Goddammit, no! Not when he was so close! Just a little more… down the hill, into the ravine and he’d be able to get a biotic emitter down. His arms shook as he tried to pull himself forward, but his strength had finally left him and he fell still. 

Okay. Dammit. Crawling wasn’t an option anymore. No choice. The light would draw attention, but he had to get the biotic emitter down _now._ He tried to reach for the closest one, but found his arms had stopped obeying him entirely. As much as Jack tried, he couldn’t even twitch a finger as his injuries and bone-deep exhaustion became too much for even his enhanced body to bear.

No…no, no, no… 

His heart sank and dread washed over him. He had known for years that this was how he would die. Someone would finally get the better of him, and he’d be forced to crawl away in some back alley and bleed out alone. Jack Morrison already had a tombstone, Soldier:76 didn’t need one. Didn’t deserve one.

A year ago, he would have accepted this. Would have laid down and let it finally, finally end. But now…

Ana. No, he couldn’t die now. Not after finding Ana alive after all these years. She was counting on him. He couldn’t let her mourn him a second time. Not when he didn’t deserve it. It had been a blessing to even see her one more time, but now she had helped give him purpose, more purpose than blind vigilantism. They were doing good work, striking out against Talon, protecting people, and tracking down Gabriel…

Gabe.

Jack’s heart hurt so badly he felt it would stop beating then and there. 

God, Gabe. Gabe, what have you done? What are you doing? 

Jack let out a low, slow breath. Of course his last thoughts would be of Gabriel Reyes. Why would he think of anything else? If he had one dying wish, it would be to see Gabe again. He was dying anyway, right? What did it matter if he met his end at the barrels of the Reaper’s shotguns? At least he’d see him again. One last time.

Jack’s breath grew slow and shallow and his limbs felt cold and distant. He couldn’t have moved even if he tried. Darkness crept in along the edges of his vision, and his visor began to blink a critical health warning. Hah. Like he needed it to tell him he was dying.

I’m sorry, Ana.

The last thing he saw were a pair of thick, steel boots stepping into his field of vision. 

I’m sorry, Gabe.

Jack’s eyes fell closed and he left the world behind.

* * * * *

God, Talon grunts were idiots. Didn’t they teach kids how to search an area anymore? It had been disgustingly easy to find where the intruder had been shot and from there it was a simple matter of following the blood trail. The very long blood trail.

The Reaper walked along the fence edge, not in any hurry as he tracked his quarry. Whoever it was obviously didn’t have long, judging from the amount of blood they’d lost. He was grudgingly impressed with the tenacity of the intruder; most people would have passed out by now.

There. A hole in the fence ahead. Hm. He’d have to have someone figure out how the intruder had overridden the laserlink and make protecting against further security breaches their problem. He had enough to deal with. Like the prone form a half-dozen feet on the other side of the fence that looked like they had finally succumbed to their wounds. Good. He wasn’t in the mood to interrogate anyone tonight. As he approached, he caught the strong line of the figure’s shoulders in the moonlight, the familiar curve of his spine, wrapped in a leather jacket with a very clear 76 on the back.

Oh. _Oh._ Well, shit.

Reaper’s relaxed, unhurried pace suddenly broke, and he melted into mist, blowing through the holes in the fence and rushing toward the fallen form. What the hell was he doing here in Morocco? Last he knew, Jack and Ana were still in Cairo!

Goddammit. That complicated things.

Jack never did know when to quit, the Reaper thought as he rematerialized beside the fallen Soldier. But then again, he’d have been terribly disappointed if his Jack ever decided to give up and die.

His Jack.

Even after all these years, he still thought of him as ‘His Jack.’

Currently, his Jack was sprawled on his front and still oozing a truly alarming amount of blood into the dirt, especially considering the lengthy blood trail Reaper had followed to get here. He spared a glance behind him, making sure that all active Talon Goon Squads were still running around like cats at a laser show, looking very busy and distracted, but not actually getting anything done. Idiots. Most of them didn’t even know he was currently on the base, much less notice his dark figure lurking on the other side of the fence, so there was no one to see him gently lift the Soldier’s still form into his arms. 

Jack’s breath was short and shallow with a wet rasp on each exhale, but he was still breathing. That was something, at least. Not much, but something. A quick check of clawed fingers to his throat revealed that his heartbeat was still steady, but starting to become light and fluttery. He’d lost a lot of blood, that much was more than obvious, but his pulse wasn’t yet arrhythmic and the fact that he was still breathing was a good sign. He needed to stop the bleeding. Now.

If Gabe had to guess, he would bet that Jack had been planning on crawling into the ravine and patching himself up before finding somewhere safer. A solid plan, except Gabe was sure Jack hadn’t realized how deep the ravine was, and doubted the injured Soldier would have survived the thirty foot drop in his condition. 

The thought brought an unexpected shiver down his spine. He could see it in his mind’s eye. Jack, half dead already, crawling to the edge of the ravine, thinking he’d finally made it to safety, only to fall further than he expected and land with the sickening crunch of flesh and bone. He’d be too stunned, too broken to move, assuming he’d even still be conscious at that point, and have no choice but to slowly die alone.

God, he’d gotten morbid in his old age. Jack wasn’t dead yet, and now he had a stubborn old ghost to help, whether he wanted it or not. He carried Jack to the edge of the ravine, and then let his lower half fade into mist and spill over the edge. He couldn’t go full Wraith without dropping Jack, but he could become insubstantial enough to get them both down the drop without injuring either of them. 

The moonlight all but disappeared in the shadows as he got them safely to the ravine floor, but Gabe’s enhancements let him see well enough in the dark to spot a small alcove in the rock wall, deep enough that the light from a biotic emitter would be entirely hidden from above. It didn’t take long to set Jack down and drop the biotic emitter, washing the two of them tucked under the small alcove with warm, yellow light. 

Alright. Time to see what he had to work with. He unzipped Jack’s gaudy jacket (Who had allowed Jack to make his own fashion decisions? This jacket was a menace.) and carefully peeled it off, followed by his Kevlar underarmor. 

Ugh. Not good. Jack’s entire torso was covered in sticky, coagulating blood, still oozing from three gunshot wounds, one in his right shoulder, his lower abdomen, and his left hip. Gabe wouldn’t be surprised if the shot to his hip had shattered part of his pelvis, too. Jack needed serious medical help, and whatever patch job he could put together wouldn’t be nearly enough. Well, where there was Jack, there was Ana. If Gabe could stabilize him, then Ana could get him the help he needed. 

Now he just needed to put his money where his mouth was and stabilize Jack, get him to wake up, and somehow convince him to tell him where Ana was. Just save his ex-lover’s life under a pile of rocks with nothing but a biotic emitter, their combined personal supplies, and his own skill. No pressure. The Reaper pulled off his clawed gauntlets and got to work. What could possibly go wrong?

His communicator chirped to life, and a familiar, perky voice spoke in his ear. 

“ _Hola,_ Gabe!”

Goddammit. Could the gods of irony or instant karma or whoever just leave him alone for ten fucking minutes?

“Don’t call me that,” Reaper growled. Sombra’s timing was too terrible to be coincidence.

“Hear about that intruder? Pretty crazy, huh?” Sombra continued, ignoring him.

“What do you care,” he grumbled, cleaning Jack’s wounds with the Soldier’s own canteen. “You’re on the other side of the planet right now.”

“Oh, I was just checking on some things,” She replied vaguely. Sure she was. “And I saw that your old pal Seventy-Six had been caught on camera! Wild, right?”

“Get to the point, Sombra.” There were a lot more scars here than Gabe remembered. Jack had been busy in the years after Zurich. He trailed his finger down something that looked like a knife wound before getting back to work.

“So I did a sweep for any devices I could triangulate location with to see if he was still hiding on the base, and can you guess what I found?”

“Sombra…” His voice held a warning tone. Convenient how she only did things like this to him while she was a continent away.

“You, Gabe! Oh. I mean _Reaper._ You, off-base, and heading further away. Now, why would that be? What important business do you have in the desert, Creepy-Reapy?”

Wonderful. Sombra had found an even worse nickname.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said as he put pressure on Jack’s abdominal wound, the last injury still bleeding. Jack, of course, chose that exact moment to rouse just enough to let out a long moan, sufficiently loud enough for communicator to pick up.

Sombra cackled. 

“What are you doing to him, Gabe? Are you two still an item? I thought you would find somewhere more sanitary for that, but if you two are that desperate…”

“What do you want, Sombra?” he snarled. 

“The usual.”

Information. Of course. Luckily, he kept a few tidbits on hand in case he ever needed to bribe the hacker. Hacker. Hah. She was clearly more of an information broker with a hacking gimmick.

“Gerard Lacroix isn’t buried with the other Overwatch Agents. That grave is empty. His real body is buried in Marseilles,” Gabe said, starting to bandage Jack with the few resources he had.

“Boring! I already knew that one, _amigo._ You’re going to need to try harder than that to buy my silence this time.”

“Widowmaker visits his grave in Marseilles on the anniversary of his death and on Christmas. She thinks no one knows.”

“Oho!” Sombra crooned in his ear. “That’s more like it. Interesting. Very interesting. You know, for that I’ll even throw in a bonus. They’ve taken your Soldier’s pulse rifle to storage bay C. I’ll erase the footage of you stealing it.”

“Tch.”

“What was that?”

Dammit. If he didn’t say it, she wouldn’t do it, and it would actually be a decent sign of good faith to return Jack’s stupid giant stolen rifle to him.

“Thank you.”

“ _De nada._ Hey, Reaps. Why do it? Hell of a risk, just for an Ex.”

“Is that information part of the price?”

“Not this time. Just curious.”

“Then you don’t get an answer.”

Sombra laughed. “That’s fair, my friend. Oh! And just because I know you’re having a bad day…” A flash of numbers flicked across the cybernetic display of his mask. Coordinates. Coordinates that were close by. 

Ana. 

“Don’t say I never did anything for you, Gabriel.” She made a kissing sound, and then disconnected.

Damn meddlesome brat. She’d likely known where Jack and Ana were hiding all along, and had only dropped the information so Gabe would still owe her a favor, damn it all. On the upside, he’d managed to stop Jack from bleeding out, and the biotic emitter was doing its job. He was breathing easier than before, chest rising and falling slowly, without that horrible shallow rasp. A few more hours with the nanobots and Jack would probably be stable enough to move. Meanwhile, that gave him a little bit of time to steal back the pulse rifle, make a plausible excuse for why he would be missing for a while, and grab a few more supplies.

He wiped his hands off and put his gauntlets back on, looking down at Jack, finally having a chance to examine him in the light. He was still firmly muscled, but he thinner than he used to be. A little more lean and a little less of a wall of solid muscle. His hair had gone white and his hairline was starting to retreat across his forehead. The end of a scar was just visible, vanishing under his mask. 

For a moment, Reaper was tempted to remove it, letting his clawed fingers linger on the mask’s release catch. He sighed. No. If the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t want Jack to see what was under his own mask. He would respect that.

He stood and straightened his coat.

“You’re a lot of trouble, Jack,” he growled at the prone form. “but I guess you’d be boring otherwise.”

Reaper turned and left the alcove, returning to base to steal back a rifle.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.


	2. Depth of Relationship

Sometimes, when Jack was feeling particularly gloomy and a little masochistic, he liked to speculate about what life would be like if the fates had allowed him to be happy. Ana disapproved of this line of thinking, as she saw no point in suffering under “might-have-beens” and believed that a person decided their own fate, even when ill fortune came along. Still, she would entertain Jack when he was in his gloomy moods, talking about his mythical house with a white picket fence and a green lawn and a grill in the backyard where he would live and raise a family.

With Gabriel, of course. He never said it out loud, but Ana knew Jack was thinking about it when he went mused about his life that could have been. Even after all these years and the betrayal in Switzerland, she knew Jack missed him. She saw it in the way his eyes grew distant, his smile sad, and how his rough voice grew just a little too soft as he spoke of his theoretical family, carefully never mentioning his theoretical spouse by name. 

It had only grown worse when they had started actively tracking the Reaper, following Gabriel’s movements and trying to piece together what the hell he was doing. Jack would see Reaper do something horrendous on stolen surveillance footage, like the attack on the Numbani museum last year, and he would get quiet and distant for a while as he grieved over what could have been.

Like she’d said a hundred times before, there was no point in getting trapped by the past, agonizing under what might have happened, or what could have been done differently. That’s what Ana told herself as she sat alone in their concealed hideout in the Moroccan desert. They’d set up camp in a bombed out set of ruins that had been a small town before it was destroyed in the Omnic Crisis. It was ideal for two vigilantes looking for somewhere to camp out unseen, and conveniently close to a secret Talon base. 

Well. Currently, it was only hiding one vigilante, an old sniper who was trying very hard not to think about her own list of “what ifs.”

She had stuck to the plan, but what if she hadn’t? What if they hadn’t split up? What if she had waited longer for Jack at the rendezvous? What if they had traded routes? What if, what if… Yes, the mission had been a success and Ana had found the information they were after, but at what cost?

_Jack, where are you?_

Only a sniper’s patience kept her in place for a full five hours after returning to their little makeshift base. Once the sun had finally broken over the horizon, she decided she’d had enough. Jack was either dead, injured, or captured, and that meant it was up to her to save his ass.

He’d better be dead, dying , or captured, she thought as she prepared to set out again, stocking up on ammunition and slinging her biotic rifle over her shoulder. Otherwise, she’d kill him herself for making her worry.

As she was attaching biotic grenades to the bandolier over her shoulder, the shrill beep of the perimeter alarm sounded in her earpiece.

Ana let out a long sigh and set down the grenade in her hand. Jack. Thank the stars. She stepped out of the bombed out shell of a building she’d made into her armory.

“It’s about time! You had me thinking you were…” Ana trailed off as a very different figure approached from across the crumbling ruins of the town. Gabriel, in that ridiculous getup he was calling “The Reaper,” carrying a blood-soaked Jack in his arms. Ana couldn’t tell if he was alive.

No… _Oh no…_

“No!” Ana dropped her rifle from her shoulder into her hands and brought it up to aim without hesitation. “What have you done?!”

“Ana, wait! Stop!” Reaper shouted.

He was still a good thirty yards out, too far away for those shotguns to be effective, and Ana had a bead on him, her crosshairs aimed right between the eyes of his skull mask, finger on the trigger, and…she stopped.

There was something about the way he carried Jack that caught her attention. He held Jack just a little too close to his chest, clawed gloves clinging to him a little too tenderly, his head resting gently on Gabriel’s shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” She demanded, keeping the rifle raised.

“He’s hurt. Stable, but he needs serious medical attention. I believe his hip is broken and he took a shot to the abdomen,” Reaper said, continuing to advance.

“From you?” She accused, though she already suspected the answer. Really, why would Gabriel carry Jack all the way back here if was just going to cause trouble? If he’d wanted to kill them both, there were much easier ways to do it. A second glance showed that he also had Jack’s pulse rifle slung over his back.

“Perimeter turret.”

Ana dropped the rifle from her shoulder. “Hm. Every time I leave him alone, he gets himself into trouble. Come on. Follow me.” 

Gabe hesitated and Ana rounded on him.

“What, you think I can carry his weight with my spindly old arms? If you’re going to do a good deed, you have to commit to it, Gabriel. This way,” she turned her back on him and headed for a different crumbling building. Gabe followed quietly, holding Jack a little closer. 

“I can only do so much here, but I have contacts who can get him the proper care he needs. How did you find us, by the way?” Ana asked as she lead the way inside the building. 

“Sombra. You might want to relocate.”

“Good to know.”

To say they’d converted the ruined building into a makeshift infirmary would have still been too grand a description. It was more of a storage room for most of their medical supplies with a cot in one corner. Gabe gently laid Jack down on the cot, set the pulse rifle down against the wall, and then turned to leave, refusing to even look at Ana.

“Why did you bring him back?” Ana said, getting right to work. Damn. Jack really was a mess this time, though he had been bandaged and stabilized. 

She fully expected Reaper to just leave without a word. She was pleasantly surprised when he stopped halfway to the door.

“…I never wanted to hurt you. Either of you.”

“I find that hard to believe,” she scoffed. “Last time we met, you literally shot Jack in the back.”

“I could have shot him in the head.”

“You’re saying that makes everything fine again? I still watched you shoot him in the back.”

“In the ass,” he corrected, and for a moment, he almost sounded like Gabriel again, the attitude rising in his voice. “Would you resist the opportunity to try and add some shape to that flat ass? …I also knew you were behind me.”

“So, you shot him knowing I would heal him?” Ana raised an eyebrow at him before turning her attention back to Jack. 

“We were on a Talon base. I couldn’t be seen just letting you go.”

“So you half-assed a fight and ran away?” she sighed. “Gabriel, I don’t understand. What game are you playing? Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on my own side.”

“That’s a terrible answer and you know it,” she snapped, keeping her eyes on Jack as she spoke. “Don’t try to play me. It won’t work, and I’m tired of your bullshit. Why? Why join Talon, after everything they did to us?”

He was silent for a while, and for a moment, Ana was sure he’d left, vanishing into smoke rather than continuing this conversation.

“I didn’t betray Overwatch for Talon, Ana.”

“That’s a bold claim.”

“I infiltrated Talon for Overwatch.”

Ana’s hands faltered for a moment as she processed this. 

“The best way to take them down is from the inside, Ana.”

“…I want to believe you, Gabriel. I really do. But that’s asking a lot coming from someone who’s hurt so many of our friends.”

“You mean how I attacked Winston and frightened him enough that he activated the Overwatch Recall, bringing back dozens of agents that had been scattered to the winds? Or how I managed to lose to Winston again in Numbani and delayed Talon getting ahold of the Doomfist Gauntlet? Or are you referring to the incident in Venice where a lot of bad people died and I was finally invited to the Talon High Council? It’s taken a long time and I’ve had to do terrible things to get here, but the heads of Talon are finally in my reach.”

“Is it worth it?” she asked quietly. “All the things you’ve done, all the people you’ve killed…is it really worth it?”

“God, I hope so.”

Ana fell quiet again, giving Jack another injection of nanobots.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“You were dead,” Gabriel snorted.

“Alright, you have me there, but what about Jack?”

“I tried to,” he said slowly. “In Zurich. Before the headquarters blew. …Emotions were running a little high.”

“I can imagine,” Ana scoffed. “You two were always terrible at communicating. Whenever the two of you had a problem with each other, you were more likely to fuck it out than talk it out. That’s not healthy, Gabriel. Communication is the foundation of any good relationship.”

“Are you seriously trying to give me relationship advice right now?” Gabe asked incredulously.

“I figure it couldn’t hurt,” Ana said, wiping her hands off with a towel and sitting back, looking down at Jack. “That’s all I can do for him right now. How long has he been unconscious?”

“Four hours or so. While I was carrying him here, he woke up just long enough to swing a punch at me before passing out again.”

“He never did know when to quit,” Ana said fondly.

“That’s what I’ve always said,” Gabriel agreed. He looked down at the pair of them for a moment longer before turning away, sighing from behind his mask. “I need to get going.”

“Thank you, Reyes. You’ve saved his life.”

The Reaper didn’t reply, finally heading for the door.

“Be careful, Gabriel. It’s possible to go undercover so deep that you can’t come back out the other side.”

“…Take care, Ana.”

Without another word, he slipped out the door, vanishing into the morning light.

Ana let out a long breath and took a seat next to Jack. Maybe after everything was said and done they’d leave all of this behind. Jack and Gabriel could get over their own egos and allow themselves to be happy, she’d get back into contact with Reinhardt, and they could all settle down somewhere and live out the last of their days in glorious, well-deserved retirement. Somewhere warm and sunny, with sandy beaches and flexible local laws. Fareeha would visit, of course, along with Angela, and they’d definitely have to go visit Torbjorn and Ingrid a few times a year.

Ana smiled. She didn’t like holding on to what could have been, but perhaps there was something to be said for imagining what could still be.

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up at my [Tumblr!](http://dabbledrabbleprose.tumblr.com)


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